Game Boy Advance (GBA)

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Three Tribes [GBA / DS – Cancelled]

Lesur
10-06-2008
4 Comments

Three Tribes was announced in November of 2004 in a press release by its Dutch developer Two Tribes as an action puzzle game in an overhead perspective designed for all ages. I could only retrieve the Dutch version of the announcement, archive.org unfortunately didn’t cache a page of the English version. The game was designed for the Gameboy Advance and possibly the Nintendo DS; no release date is given for the game and the company had no publishing partner for the game at the moment of the announcement.

Three Tribes sets the player in control of a shaman whose purpose is to help out the natives he meets with their problems. Interaction between the characters, animals, objects and tools found in the game and with the environment itself would be a central part of solving the various puzzles. The game would be set in the same visual perspective as the 2D Zelda games but with a lot more freedom allowing the player to climb, swim and fly anywhere they wanted to. The game also promised a wide variety of mission objectives. The NDS version would differ from the GBA version in having a multiplayer game editor. The editor would allow players to design their own multiplayer levels and create their own objectives and later share them with friends.

Unfortunately Three Tribes was quietly cancelled; the company never found a publisher for the game. The main cause could have been the declining GBA market but I also cannot retrieve how far development of both versions was. I could find only a couple of GBA screenshots and two promotional videos (see below) and absolutely no information on the Nintendo DS version. On the current site of Two Tribes the game is briefly mentioned:

„In the meantime, we’d spent two years developing a physics puzzle adventure game called Three Tribes for Game Boy Advance, though it turned out to be impossible to find a publisher for such an ambitious concept.

The game was stated way into 2010 on the Two Tribes website as a Gameboy Advance title “In development”. After a refreshment of the website later that year the game vanished of the radar and was no longer mentioned. The game still hasn’t vanished completely as its promotional website is still (partly) online. But I think we can consider it cancelled.

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Two Tribes teaser trailer – 2004 – GBA:

Three Tribes – GBA video: 

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Mother 3 [GBA – Unused Boss & Sprites]

U64 Staff & Contributors
28-04-2008
3 Comments

mother3gbalogo.jpg

Mother 3 is the latest (and some say last) installment in the Earthbound saga. Released 12 years after the previous game in the series, Earthbound, it offers a radically different story and presentation than the other games it shares its name with, all the while retaining the same combat system and quirky sense of humor.

Creator Shigesato Itoi initially conceived mother 3 to be released for the N64 when it was announced first in 1996. However due to both the teams inexperience in developing with 3D graphics and the commercial failure of the N64 DD drive (which would have been required to play the game) the project was cancelled in 2000, even though the game was quite far in development. For an interesting comparison between the original N64 version and the GBA version, check this nice article by Starmen.net (warning for spoilers).

The next time anyone would hear about Mother3 it would be in 2003, when it was redesigned for the Game Boy Advance. Graphically the game looked closer to its predecessors, a league away from the blocky, early-3D look that it first appeared with. When it finally shipped in 2006 anticipation was high, so high in fact that when Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu polled its readers on what games they wanted most, Mother3 was on top of the list. Sadly, to date Mother3 has never seen a western release. Fans wishing to play the game are left with importing it and using fan-made guides to finish it. Recently however a dedicated group of fans has translated the entire game and made the patch available for the public. So those that never got to experience this hidden gem can now enjoy it in English.

Below are unused sprites (like a taxy, a bus and an UFO) and a video of unused backrounds. Many people said this was Giygas, but it is not:

From Earthbound Wiki:

Although, even if said by fans that the unused boss is Giygas, it has been said by Shigesato Itoi himself, that they were simply unused backgrounds depicting Lucas’s thoughts over the battle with the Masked Man. Although it makes a huge resemblance to Giygas, it is not. As told by Shigesato, the screaming faces of Claus show that Lucas is recognizing Claus and seeing his pain, even the red deformed face of Claus. This makes much more sense, because hackers have used programs to see where some of the unused music’s events originated from, and the “Lucas’s nightmare” music was going to originally be the Ultimate Chimera’s approach, but was later scrapped because it was too scary for a younger audience.

For more info check:
http://forum.starmen.net/forum/Mother/3_GameHelp/41877

[spoiler /Sweden translation/ /Hide/]Sve: Giygas skulle egentligen vara i Mother 3, men var raderat från datan, antagligen pga. att bossfighten var för skrämmande för nyare, ungare spelare (fast ironiskt nog så var Mother 3 mycket mer mörkare än Mother 2/Earthbound), eller pga. att Giygas var förstörd för evigt. [/spoiler]

Some sprites from: www.spriters-resource.com

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Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Metroid IV Fusion [GBA – Beta / Proto]

U64 Staff & Contributors
08-04-2008
4 Comments

metroidfusionlogo.jpg

Metroid Fusion, originally known as Metroid 4, was in development for the GameBoy Color before being stopped and reworked for the GBA. In the gallery below you can see how different the Metroid Fusion beta was, especially in its early proto version shown in 2001. When the game was released in november 2002, the graphic was completely redone and many features were removed, as the ability to walk up on walls and ceilings.

Images:

Some screenshot from: http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb

Even the later beta had various differences.

This video showcases Metroid Fusion with an odd looking HUD, and at 0:07 you can see that the enemy’s right side is blown off, a feature not present in the full game. Other things are that title cards seem to have a different font, and at 0:24 there’s a scope icon at the top right. also, at 0:33 Samus seems to be wearing a dress.

In these videos there are some unused debug rooms, though the loading points WERE hacked to get them loaded.

In this one the X parasites look different, and at 0:18 the doors look completely different. Throughout the video the scope thing (as said earlier) at the top right has a wavy texture (Maybe radio or heartbeat monitor?). The enemies also respawn much faster than in the final.

There are also some unused music hidden in the final game’s code. You can listen them in the videos below.

Thanks to Mariosegafreak for the contribution! An archive of screens, info and videos of the early Metroid Fusion versions, can be found at Celebi23’s website!

Videos

 

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Metroid Zero Mission [GBA – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
08-04-2008
7 Comments

metroidzerogbalogo.jpg

Metroid: Zero Mission​ is an action adventure developed by Nintendo R&D1 for the Game Boy Advance, published by Nintendo 2004. In these early screens and trailer we can notice that the graphic was completely different from the one used in the final game! Also the second and third video show that  hidden in the game’s code it’s possible to find an unused model of a Crocomire, a lost enemy, and in the gallery you can notice a debug room!

Thanks to interdpth for the contribution!

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